#jung yumi
The webtoon adaptation of the romantic drama “Discovery of Love,” which aired on KBS2 in 2014, has been confirmed.
In the drama “Discovery of Love,” Jung Yu‑mi appeared as the protagonist, Han Yeo-reum. She is in love with her boyfriend, but her ex-boyfriend arrives in front of her and wants a new start with her. Eric Mun, of the boy band Shinhwa, portrayed Han Yeo-reum’s ex-boyfriend. He is well-known for his his attractive looks and self-assurance. Seong Joon played Han Yeo-reum’s current boyfriend, who has a loving and caring personality.
The drama “Discovery of Romance” has created a fandom to the point where it has been called the “standard of romantic comedy” until now, 7 years after it aired. Interest is gathered in how the charm of the refreshing romantic comedy genre will be conveyed through the webtoon “Discovery of Love.”
Source:Tap Comics
i knew this film was going to be depressing. depicting the quotidian everyday of a housewife’s life, kim jiyoung, born 1982 sheds light on the daily injustices women face. even if the daily injustice is on its own tolerable, the accumulation of tiny cuts can suddenly make life unbearable.
jiyoung, played by the reliable jung yumi, is not okay. she is chronically depressed, constantly aggravated by the marital bliss that surrounds her and that she is expected to feel grateful for. in trying to meet societal expectations of her as a daughter-in-law, a wife, a mother, a daughter, jiyoung loses her sense of self and the courage to pursue her dreams. jiyoung summarises this the best at the end of the film, where she tells her therapist, “sometimes i am filled with gratefulness and joy when i look at my family and the love around me. but sometimes this suddenly makes me feel trapped. i try to escape, but i run into a wall every route that i take.”
none of the micro-aggressions of gender inequality surprised me in this film. none at all - if it surprised you, you probably belong to the privileged group that society’s structure protects. from how jiyoung’s father tells her to cover up more to prevent boys, who cannot help themselves, from sexually harassing her, to how jiyoung’s mother-in-law’s kneejerk reaction against her son going on childcare leave, to how jiyoung’s girlboss mentor at work had to retaliate against a chauvinistic colleague indirectly through a joke. these are ordinary incidents that happen every day, every where. it’s only now that it’s captured in excruciating detail in film.
and this is not to blame men. yes, yes, not all men. and definitely not gong yoo, who shows us that even husbands with the best intentions can fall short, as they are inhibited by the inevitable unawareness by not being birthed as females. when jiyoung was upset by his family’s pressure on them to give birth to kids, his (well-meaning) response was “let’s just do it - we have to do it anyway, so why not do it now? i’ll be good. i’ll come back early, i’ll help change diapers, i’ll earn money.” when jiyoung replies “but things will change for me. i will feel suffocated”, he doesn’t understand, and not for the lack of trying. but because he continually tries to put himself his wife’s shoes, he finally does somewhat understand the sacrifices she has had to make, and starts making them in return.
does this film provide any resolution? apart from demonstrating the importance of men stepping up in the household, i saw two ‘outs’ that the film posited. (i) women should continually to press at pockets of opportunity they are presented with, and (ii) other women should have their backs when they are doing so, even when their sons eventually marry the women they love.
if i were to put a stern critic’s hat on, this film would be an 8-9, because the source material was already so strong and cemented in reality that botching the adaptation would’ve been harder than pulling it off. but because i can’t think of another film that so realistically portrays the modern woman’s uphill challenges, kim jiyoung, born 1982, to me, deserves a place amongst korean film classics.
when the book first released in korea, and later the movie, it gathered a lot of controversy. many keyboard warriors reprimanded the book for inciting societal instability and promoting feminism, and even burned photos of celebrities who had endorsed this book. casting gong yoo and jung yumi was a conscious decision to give this film and its feminist perspective a larger voice, but even gong and jung weren’t spared, and to date the book continues to rile up the anti-feminists. this simply shows that the film’s ending is optimistic and rare in reality, and that we have a long way to go in holding the hands of the many kim jiyoungs that exist in your society and mine. –9/10
